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TeitoKew--テイトキュCommissioned by: cousinxcaps for the 'Sol Defense Initiative' project: https://sol-defense-initiative.fandom.com/wiki/Sol_Defense_Initiative_Wiki
When the Japanese battleship Yamato was called upon to lead Operation: Ten-Go, damage to her rudder from an American carrier raid would prevent her from sortieing. Instead her sister ship Musashi would take her place, being aided by the IJN Kongō in Yamato’s stead.
A pair of carrier raids would attempt to sink the ship in port at Kure, but would fail and the ship would be moved to the Yokosuka Naval Base. Taken as a war prize by the USN after the Japanese surrender, she would be sent across the Pacific to the Bremerton Naval Yard to be studied and assessed, before be practically left abandoned other then sealing the ship up for possible further use.
Decades would pass with the ship only being moderately maintained to keep her from sinking. Things would change in the 1980s however. With many old battleships being reactivated by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, Japan offered to help build facilities needed to maintain and refit the vessels, in exchange for one thing.
The return of the Yamato to Japan for their own use.
This was met with some pushback from the U.S. Government but following intense negotiations, the deal was finalized. Yamato was towed around South America to the Norfolk Navy Yard due to the fact that the Long Beach Naval Yards docks that were large enough to fit her were occupied with the reactivation of the Iowa-class battleships.
From early 1983-late 1985, she was refitted with modern radar sets, as well as Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles, and Phalanx Close-in-weapon systems. After the work on her was complete, she would be sent across the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, making a stop at the city of Alexandria, before continuing on to the Suez Canal and entering the Indian Ocean.
Now she serves in the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force, reclassified as a ‘Coastal Battery Ship’ with the hull code of (CBS-101). She would famously meet her American counterpart USS Missouri during a joint exercise, before eventually being decommissioned in 1994 and preserved as a museum ship in Tokyo Bay.
2024-01-15 05:48:13 +0000